gs? Would it be fair of me, besides, to steal hours that ought to
be devoted to your country?"

Though I had not the slightest imaginable ground to suspect any secret
sarcasm in this speech, my guilty conscience made me feel it as a
perfect torture. "She knows me," thought I, "and this sneer at my
pretended importance is intended to overwhelm me."

"As to my country's claims," said I, haughtily, "I make light of them.
All that I have seen of life only shows the shallowness of what is
called the public service. I am resolved to leave it, and forever."

"And for what?"

"A life of retirement,--obscurity if you will."

"It is what I should do if I were a man."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. I have often reflected over the delight I have felt in walking
through some man's demesne, revelling in the enjoyment of its leafy
solitude, its dreary shade, its sunlit vistas, and I have thought, 'If
all these things, not one of which are mine, can bring such pleasure
to my heart, why should I not adopt the same philosophy in life, and
be satisfied with enjoying without possessing? A very humble lot would
suffice for one, nothing but great success could achieve the other.'"

"What becomes, then, of that great stimulus to good they call labor?"

"Oh, I should labor, too. I 'd work at whatever I was equal to. I 'd
sew, and knit, and till my garden, and be as useful as possible."

"And I would write," said I, enthusiastically, as though I were plotting
out my share in this garden of Eden. "I would write all sorts of things:
reviews, and histories, and stories, and short poems, and, last of all,
the 'Confessions of Algernon Sydney Potts.'"

"Oh, what a shocking title! How could such names have met together? That
shocking epithet Potts would vulgarize it all!"

"I really cannot agree with you," said I, angrily. "Without," said she,
"you meant it for a sort of quiz; and that Potts was to be a creature of
absurdity and folly, a pretender and a snob."

I felt as if I was choking with passion; but I tried to laugh, and say,
"Yes, of course."

"That would be good fun enough," went she on. "I 'd like, if I could,
to contribute to that. You should invent the situations, and leave me
occasionally to supply the reflective part."

"It would be charming; quite delightful."

"Shall we do it, then-? Let us try it, by all means. We might begin by
imagining Potts in search of this, that, or t'other,--love, happiness,
solitude, climate, scenery, any